When comparing Paint.NET vs Pixly, the Slant community recommends Paint.NET for most people. In the question“What are the best pixel art / sprite editors?”Paint.NET is ranked 5th while Pixly is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Paint.NET is:

Paint.net provides a streamlined but effective core tool set. Support for advanced and niche features is provided through modular plugins, allowing the user to install only what's needed.

Pros

Pro

Lightweight

Paint.net provides a streamlined but effective core tool set. Support for advanced and niche features is provided through modular plugins, allowing the user to install only what's needed.

Pro

Free software

There is no charge for this software; but donations are welcomed.

Pro

Active and friendly community

The forums are filled with tutorials, as well as people who are friendly and eager to help.

Pro

HiDPI support

Paint.NET supports fully HiDPI displays, with no scaling problems.

Pro

Easy to learn and use

Unlike most photo editing software, Paint.NET is simple to learn and easy to use. This means less time is spent learning the in's and out's of Paint.NET and more time on photo editing. For those who only edit photos sporadically and don't have time to invest in learning complicated tools for editing, Paint.Net will suit your needs.

Pro

Actively developed

The project is active and being continually expanded and refined.

Pro

Plugins allow extra functionality

Plugins can be made by anyone in the community, and are offered for download on the forum. They extend the capabilities of Paint.NET to cover most tasks.

Pro

Color selector with different color systems

RGB, CMY, HSB, and a somewhat different HUSL.

Pro

Offers color ramp generator

Pixly offers a color ramp generator that then exports directly into a custom palette.

Pro

You can use reference images

You can work with a reference image on top of your art, or by its side.

Pro

Allows you to continue your work even when not in front of your PC

This tool works on both phones and tablets that run Android, which is handy for when you do not have access to a PC.

Pro

Gestures that feel natural on touch screens

In Pixly, you can move the art around with two fingers (like in Google Maps) and change the brush/eraser size with a three-finger pinch.

Pro

Supports onion skinning

Onion skinning is also called ghosting. It allows the user to see the past and previous frames, while editing the current frame. This way, the user can make decisions on how to create or change an image.

Pro

Mirroring support

In Pixly, the user can make symmetrical art with a mirror, or even go bananas setting up two or more mirrors at different angles at once.

Pro

Transparency support

The user can make transparent sprites in Pixly.

Pro

Animation support

Even though this is a mobile tool, it's fully featured and even allows you to create animations.

Pro

Standard and custom palettes

Pro

Live image tiling

The user can create tiles in Pixly and keep an eye on progress in real time.

Pro

Layered projects

Pro

Color filters

Cons

Con

Only available on Windows

Paint.NET is only available on Windows.

Con

No project-based interface

You can only edit a single image at a time in Paint.NET. For example, in other tools you can open 5 or a 100 images at the same time, and stack those windows in all directions.Furthermore, when you are editing in Paint.NET you can only "view" a single image at a time, even though you can have multiple images open. This limits your zooming ability, as the image will go fullscreen quite quickly, and hide parts of it behind the floating toolbars which can not be embedded anywhere on the screen.